Pardes Faculty Traveling

Creating Classroom Community-Building Relationship and Trust

I. Building Relationship and Trust

1. You and them

Get to know your students both as learners and as people.
Give them a survey at the beginning of the year asking then about their summer,
hobbies, and how they like to learn.Check in about their favorite sports teams, how their basketball game
was, and what is happening on their favorite reality TV show.It makes a big difference.

2. Communal
Responsibility

Create a community that is responsible for one another.Students don’t need to put their best foot
forward because of teacher expectations, but because it is the expectation of
the classroom.Students should be aware
of how their behavior impacts the community, not just you the teacher.They are making a commitment to one another.

Create classroom guidelines with the students.If they are involved in creating the
guidelines, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership to them.Hang them in the room, refer back to them
often, and hold your students accountable 100% to the guidelines from the
moment they are created.

An activity for creating classroom guidelines:

Give
every student two different color post-it notes.

On the
yellow one students write a word or a phrase- what they need to learn, on
the green one- what they need to feel safe or comfortable.

Put
all post-it notes on the wall.

Students
come up and start to look at all the words, group them together,
categorize etc.

In
small groups, students come up with 5 classroom guidelines that take into
consideration the needs of the class.

Small
groups read out their guidelines, and class comes up with a list- no more
than 5.

Hang
guidelines on a poster with the post-it words around the outside.

3. Positive Framing

People are motivated by the positive far more than the
negative.

Make your interventions in a positive and constructive
way.It does not mean avoid
interventions so that you can only make positive comments.

“Make corrections consistently and positively.Narrate the world you want your students to
see even while you are relentlessly improving it.” (Lemov 205)

Live in the now- Avoid harping on
what students can no longer fix while you are in the middle of a
lesson.Processing what went wrong
is best done after class, not during.Give instructions that describe what the next step is on the path
to success.

Assume the best- Don’t attribute
to ill intention what could be the result of distraction, lack of
practice, or genuine misunderstanding.Until you know an action was intentional, your public discussion of
it should remain positive.

“Just a minute, class.I asked for chairs pushed in, and some people
decided not to do it.”This assumes
selfishness, deliberate disrespect or laziness.

“Some people seem to have forgotten
to push in their chairs.Let’s go back
and get it right.” Shows your faith and turst in your students.

Try thanking your students as you
ask them to do something- “Thank you for taking your seats in 3-2-1…

Teacher 1- I need three
people.Make sure you fix it if it is
you.Now I need two. We’re almost
there.Thank you, let’s get started.

Teacher 2- I need three
people.And one more student doesn’t
seem to understand the directions, so now I need four.Some people don’t appear to be listening.I am waiting.If I have to give detentions I will.

Teacher one calls his students
attention to the positive behaviors thereby normalizing them.The second teacher- everything is wrong and
getting worse.

Talk expectations and aspirations

Avoid:

Rhetorical Questions- don’t ask
questions that you don’t want the answer to.Would you like to join us David?Try instead- Thank you for joining us David.

Contingencies- Don’t say “I’ll
wait” because really you won’t.Don’t
make your actions contingent on theirs.Try, “we need you with us”.

4. Precise Praise

Positive reinforcement is extremely important.

Differentiate acknowledgement and
praise- students who meet expectations deserve to have it noticed and
acknowledged.“Thank you for being
ready for class on time.”

Students who have done something
exceptional deserve to be told that what they did was above and beyond.“Excellent work Sarah.”

Praise and acknowledge loud; fix soft-
whispered or nonverbal criticism gives the students the opportunity to
correct themselves and assumes that they are capable.Make good news as public as possible.

Praising students for the effort
has been shown to be more effective than praising students for their
intelligence.

Praise must be genuine- Do not
praise one student in order to criticize another.

5. Warm/Strict

Not only is it possible to be both warm and strict, but you
must be both, often at the same time.When you are clear, consistent, firm and unrelenting and at the same
time positive, enthusiastic, caring and thoughtful, you send the message to
students that having high expectations is part of caring for and respecting
someone.

Explain
to students why you’re doing what you are- and how it is designed to help
them.

Distinguish
between behavior and people.“ Your
behavior is inconsiderate,” rather than “you are inconsiderate”.

Demonstrate
that consequences are temporary- Use a consequence so you don’t have to
hold a grudge.Once it is over,
smile and make it clear to the student that they are starting with a clean
slate.

Use
warm, non-verbal behavior- Put your hand on a students shoulder and kindly
tell them that you are sorry, but they will have to re-do the homework
because you know he is capable of better.Bend down and speak to them directly.

6. Create a classroom
that is joyful- bring your energy, passion, humor and fun into the learning
environment.Use art, drama, song and
dance, suspense and surprise, fun and games.

7. Emotional
Constancy- Being emotionally constant earns students trust because they
know you are under control.If the point
is learning, not pleasing the teacher- “I am disappointed in you” is better
replaced by “The expectation of this class is that you give it your best
effort.”

Part of being an adolescent is experimenting with
exaggerated emotion.Don’t allow
yourself to become inflamed and hold grudges.Expect students to occasionally get upset and respond as calmly as
possible.They need you to be
consistent.

8. Normalize Error- Getting
it wrong and then getting it right is one of the fundamental processes for
schooling.Respond to both parts of this
sequence, the wrong and the right, as completely normal.Don’t chasten students or
make excuses for wrong answers.They are
normal and don’t need much narration.Avoid spending a lot of time on the issue.Ask the student to try again, give a little
help- a next step or a clue, to help them get there.